I tried to find various rail construction limits, and have attached images and uploaded a savegame (Construction study test savegame) to show my findings. These helped me to envisage the possiblities and limits when I wanted to construct certain track configurations. Some of the things I noted/was surprised about:
- Minimum length to make a track low or high enough to pass over/under: a tunnel is a shorter length, but uses a wider patch of land then a bridge. The land can be levelled out so you get steep wall sides (but that takes room to construct - might not be handy in a city). Before a tunnel pops to a submerged version instead of just a big cut-out, the length underground is actually longer than a bridge.
- Separate tunnels or bridges and tunnels need a spacing of at least 4 tracks to be laid on a straight piece of track.
- Minimum bridge height is dependent on the angle of the bridge to the crossing track. Lowest height at 90 degrees.
- To create a bank with vertical sides: lay a raised bank the normal way. Then use the level tool on largest brush size to draw the side of the bank down. You can perfect this by lowering the levelled ground a bit further and levelling again.
- A tunnel trough a bank need quite a bit of height. Most times a bridge on a piece of bank will be easier.
On high speed (300kmh) rail construction:
- A switch to a parallel 300kmh track seems only possible at a max speed of 240kmh.
- A switch branching of a straight 300kmh track seems only possible at a max speed of 270kmh.
- A switch on a 300kmh curve can have a fairly wide max angle with the branched track also at 300kmh
- A switch on a 300kmh curve that comes out of the curve at a straight ange is not possible (see above). But with only a very small curve the other way it looks almost straight and is still 300kmh.
On bridges over multiple tracks:
- A single track can be crossed at roughly 90±60 degrees.
- Minimum bridge height is dependent on the angle of the bridge to the crossing track. Lowest height at 90 degrees.
- Maximum number of tracks you can cross with a bridge is 5
- 5 tracks can be crossed at roughly 90±10 degrees.
Edit by Grimes: Double post were combined and topic has been moved.
